FAQ for parents/guardians: Hāpara Highlights Follow
In this article:
Why does my child’s teacher use Highlights?
When and how often is Highlights used?
How will I know when Highlights is being used?
Does Highlights work on personal devices?
Can Highlights see what we do on our home computers?
What is Hāpara Highlights?
Hāpara Highlights is a tool that allows teachers to create online lessons that are meaningful, purposeful and engaging, while guiding students so they get the most out of their time spent online.
Highlights is also designed to help teachers create a climate of active learning throughout their classroom. This means that students are actively engaged in learning rather than simply consuming information.
Why does my child’s teacher use Highlights?
Highlights gives teachers visibility into students’ online activity during learning. This helps teachers identify the progress and challenges of the learning process. As a result, teachers can then personalize learning for each student.
For example, teachers can instantly share websites with students to help them with research or guide them when an activity requires the full attention of a student. Teachers can also send messages to students to encourage them or help them redirect to their learning path.
Most importantly, Highlights helps teachers protect your child when learning online and teaches students how to remain safe in digital environments. Additionally, Highlights helps meet the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) requirement that K-12 schools and libraries use internet filters and implement other measures to protect children from harmful online content.
When and how often is Highlights used?
Hāpara Highlights is a tool strictly for teaching and learning purposes and is ethically managed. Student privacy is of the utmost importance. Hāpara’s policy on Highlights is that it is used during instructional hours. However, individual schools/districts can set specific times when Highlights is in use based on their instructional needs. Therefore, your child’s school may have different times set up for Highlights use. Reach out to your school/district’s technical administrator for more information on when Highlights is in use.
How will I know when Highlights is being used?
The Highlights extension icon is in the top right-hand corner of the Google Chrome browser. It will display in color rather than gray when your child’s teacher has started a Highlights session. This means your child's teacher may be monitoring students’ Chrome browsing activity.
In addition to the Highlights extension icon changing color, messages from your child’s teacher may appear as a pop-up in the browser. Messages are only sent from teacher to students, so once a message is read, the student can close that message.
The teacher may also share websites with students. Websites will automatically open in your child’s browser window. Occasionally, teachers may use a focus session to share resources with students. In this case, only the websites shared by the teacher will appear on your child’s device for the time period set. At the end of the time period, their device will return to the pre-focus session state.
Does Highlights work on personal devices?
Hāpara Highlights is tied to your child’s school-issued account. Therefore, if a student is logged into their school-issued account in the Google Chrome browser on a personal device, Highlights can be used.
Your child can keep their school internet browsing separate from any personal browsing, though, so that Highlights will only be used for their school work.
If your child uses their school-issued account on a personal device, we recommend that they:
- Log in to their school account through a Google Chrome profile rather than just signing in to Google
- Log out when they are finished with their school work
Specifically signing in through Chrome lets the web browser keep browsing information separate.
This ensures that your child’s Highlights sessions and school browsing information stay separate from their personal browsing or other family members’ browsing.
To learn more about how to log in through Chrome, visit Signing into Chrome vs signing into your Google account.
Can Highlights see what we do on our home computers?
School officials can restrict Highlights to work only on a school's network and only during certain hours of the day. If neither of those options is enabled, then teachers and administrators will be able to see a student's Chrome browsing activity when the student is logged into their school-issued Chrome Google account. To prevent the possibility of visibility into your personal activity online, make sure your child is logged out of their school account.
My child is participating in distance learning. The teacher reports that Hāpara Highlights is not working on my child’s device. How can I help the teacher troubleshoot?
Your child’s teacher will be thrilled if you help troubleshoot! To learn how to perform a Highlights student diagnostic check, review Why students appear “offline” in Highlights.